


Finding A Reason

by savvywrites1115



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Feels, Backstory, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Force Bond (Star Wars), Jedi Rey, Kylo Ren Redemption, POV Multiple, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-03-23 14:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13789917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savvywrites1115/pseuds/savvywrites1115
Summary: Basically what I want for Episode IX--a vent to express my Reylo feelings and my first fanfic! I'm not an expert on the Star Wars universe so please forgive my mistakes and help me with constructive comments. Thanks and enjoy!





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This starts in Rey's POV and it's a few months after the events of The Last Jedi. There's some plot holes that I decided not to fill... Maybe I'll do that later, but I kinda wanted to leave the other plot lines open and mainly focus on Rey/Ben.

Rey’s been busy. Helping the Resistance find a new base, searching for sympathizers, inciting rebellion in the First Orders enormous ranks of Stormtroopers. She even found a boy, around nine, and a girl, maybe eleven, who were strong in the Force. She’d taken on training them, conscious of her influence on them as their teacher and mentor. She did not want to repeat Luke’s mistakes. And so when she felt the Force connection tugging at her consciousness, she closed herself off. It’s not that she didn’t want to talk to him—she did, badly. But she couldn’t face him. And she couldn’t let her emotions get the best of her, not now, when the Resistance—not to mention her friends—needed her more than ever.

The last time she had seen Ben through the Force, it had been in the middle of rescuing her friends, the last of the organized Resistance. He had gazed up at her, regret and pain obvious on his face. She wanted to go to him then, but reminded herself that she had already tried that plan. No, she hated to admit it, but the choice Ben Solo had to make now was entirely his own, and Rey couldn’t do it for him. Nor could she wait for him. So with a heavy heart, she closed the bond on him.

That had been more than two months ago, and it seemed like every day she felt his presence pulling at her, begging to speak with her. She firmly shut him out every time. It felt so wrong, to keep tormenting him like this, but her friends needed her, so she stood her ground.

That is, until last night. She had a melody stuck in her head, one that resurfaced from the murky depths of her memories the previous night in her dreams. Ducking out of the mess hall tent after hurriedly finishing dinner, she walked a little ways away and found herself facing west, staring as the sun set over the ocean, humming the tune. There had been words in the song in her dream, but she didn’t remember them. It was hauntingly beautiful, and she wondered if her mother had once sung that song to her as a child. Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t notice the Force connection until it was too late.

She turned around and saw Ben behind her, looking at her as if she was the only thing he wanted to see. Rey started to break it off, pull the curtain across her mind. Knowing exactly what she was going to do, he let out a desperate plea: “Rey, please, wait!”

The desperation in his tone was palpable, and she stopped; partially out of pity and partially because of something else… Longing? Had she missed him? “I need to talk to you,” he said. She stopped resisting the Force and looked up into his face expectantly. 

“… Why did you leave me?” he asked softly.

She looked at him incredulously. “Why do you think I left?”

He avoids her gaze. “Because I wasn’t enough for you.”

Is that really how he saw it? Rey wondered. “Ben, my friends were being killed. I couldn’t abandon them. And you… weren’t going to help,” Rey trailed off.

“If you had joined me, I would have done anything you asked!” he said, his tone rising.

“But joining you is not what I wanted!”

Silence.

A tear slipped out of her eye as she continued. “I don’t want to rule the galaxy. I don’t want to rule anything. I just want you to come home.”

“You’re saying that when you came to me, you weren’t going to use me to help the Resistance, to weaken the First Order?” His gaze met hers again. “You came only for me?”

Now it was her turn to be ashamed. “I mean, of course I needed your help. But I went because I cared about you.” He started to shake his head. “Ben, I do care about you. When I saw your future, you were with me, and you were so… happy. You had let go of the pain from your past. And there’s only one way you can do that—by coming home.”

“I can’t go back Rey, I’m not wanted there.”

“Leia wants you back. And I want you back. Isn’t that enough?”

“And you think anyone else would be glad to see me? To fight beside Kylo Ren? When I’ve killed their friends and family?” He spat out the words bitterly. 

Rey could not counter that. She bit her lip. “Ben … I’m sorry I left. I want to be with you, but right now … right now I can’t.” She turned away and swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Rey, I …” his voice cracked, and he reached for her hand. But just as he grabbed it, she gasped and turned back to him. 

“Someone’s coming, I have to go.”

“Rey, wait—just promise me you’ll talk to me again next time,” he said, latching on to her hand.

She looked into his eyes again with a pained expression. “Ben—I … ok,” she sighed.

He sighed too, in relief, and let go of her hand, disappearing from her presence.

A moment later, Finn rounds a corner of a tent, obviously looking for her. “Hey, what are you doing out here? Were you talking to someone?”

Rey knew she could trust Finn with anything, but she had not yet told anyone but Leia about the Force bond with Ben. The rest of the Resistance had accepted her story with gaping plot holes on Leia’s word, but she knew everyone had questions they had not dared to ask her yet. She owed Finn an explanation, but right then, she really didn’t want to give it. So she lied.

“No, it’s just me out here. I needed some air.”

Finn seemed skeptical, but didn’t question her. “Well, Leia is holding another counsel and she sent me to find you.”

“Oh, ok.” She turns to walk back with him. They approach the General’s tent, and Finn pauses outside the flap. 

“Rey—” He turned her shoulder to him and pointedly looked into her face. “Rey, you know you can tell me anything, right?” 

Rey bit her lip and found herself resisting the urge to tell him everything. “Finn, I will tell you. I promise. Just—not right now, ok?” He nodded and pulled her into an unexpected hug. Rey smiled at his affection and held on to him a little longer, before breaking apart and entering the tent.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is also from Rey's POV, though it goes further into Kylo Ren's backstory. I tried as much as I could to research Ben's childhood, so it should be mostly canon compliant... it's a bit longer than the first, 'cause I usually write to my heart's content and then split it up into chapters afterward. Hope you like it!

Rey woke up early the next morning from an unsettling dream that she couldn’t quite remember. It was at least an hour before she usually gets up to dress and eat breakfast, so she decided to sit and meditate for a little while. She was sitting on the ground cross-legged, beginning the breathing exercises she learned in the old Jedi texts, when she felt the world around her become eerily quiet. Then came the familiar tug at her navel, like how one’s stomach feels sitting in a spacecraft just before it jumps to lightspeed. And then suddenly Kylo Ren was in her tent, his imposing figure towering over her.

 

She squinted up at him. “Good morning,” she said casually.

 

He looked just as surprised to see her, sitting on the floor in front of him in her sleep clothes. He heaves a sigh. “It’s not good until I’ve had my caf.”

 

Rey chuckled and closed her eyes again, intending to keep meditating but knowing fully well that as long as he stood in front of her, her attempts would be in vain.

 

“Rey—” She opened one eye to glance at him only to see that he had lowered himself to the floor in front of her. He was staring at her, working his jaw as if toying with the words on his tongue.

 

“Yeah?” she finally asked.

 

“I just—I’m not good at this…” His eyes met hers, and she was startled by the pain she saw in them. “I’m sorry, Rey.”

 

“I… what?”

 

“I’m sorry for invading your mind, and making you feel afraid of me. I’m sorry for making you choose between me and your friends. I’m sorry if I ever hurt you.”

 

Rey was speechless. His apology was so sincere, painfully real. She realized that he was facing his mistakes, perhaps for the first time in his life, and he was showing his vulnerability to her. The pain in his features she could suddenly understand.

 

_What do I say to that?_ she thought. _It’s okay?_ It wasn’t okay. _I forgive you?_ She wasn’t ready to forgive him. She bit her lip, looking down at her hands. And then she knows what to do.

 

She extended her hand to him, as she did that night in her hut on Ahch-To. He took off his glove, the same way he did before. Their fingers touched—and Rey was whisked away in a lifetime of memories.

 

It couldn’t have lasted more than a few moments—a minute at most—but Rey witnessed every significant memory of Ben Solo’s childhood as if she herself were living it. She saw a young Leia and Han holding her—holding _Ben_ —and singing him to sleep. She saw them telling him stories, playing with him, laughing with him, and she saw them gradually being replaced with other figures. Luke, Chewie, a beautiful woman with purple hair, C3PO, R2D2, friends, nannies, tutors. She saw Leia coming home late at night, asking Ben the same motherly questions but too tired to really listen to his answers. She saw Han packing up the _Millennium Falcon_ and closing the hatch on Ben again and again, always leaving behind empty promises of when he’d be back. She saw Leia and Han fighting, from short spats to bitter battles, hurling poisonous words at each other like knives, always knowing exactly what to say to hit the hardest. She heard Leia crying behind closed doors and Han drowning his feelings in liquor before jumping aboard the _Falcon_ again.

 

And under all of it, she saw Ben’s nightmares running through his consciousness like a noxious river. He woke up again and again in a cold sweat, wondering why his mind tried to betray him. When he was younger, he would talk to Leia about them. But they soon became so vile that the thought of speaking them aloud made him sick. Some nights he tried to resist sleep, reading books until his eyelids could not keep themselves open, sneaking into the kitchen to drink a cup of caf in the middle of the night. He always fell asleep eventually, succumbing to his tormenting dreams. He grew angry all the time, at everything. Especially at his parents. And the voice in his head that he assumed was his own fed his anger. He thought that if he released his anger—by yelling, by fighting, by hurling sharp words the way his parents sometimes did—that he’d be less angry afterward. It never worked, but the voice in his head told him to do it anyway. He was so conflicted, wondering what he could do to silence this evil part of him. He mostly felt either angry or afraid. But he always felt alone.

 

As he matured and his conflict became more and more apparent, Leia sought out the help of Luke, rationalizing that Jedi training was the best way for Ben to control his emotions. Yet Ben was terrified of starting his training—when he had realized just how strong he was with the Force, the darkness within him twisted that notion with thoughts of violence and left him afraid of his abilities. He assumed the safest course was to suppress his powers, but Luke assured him that he could, with the proper training, master his connection to the Force. So finally, when he was around eleven, he left his home and parents for the majority of ten years to train with Luke to become a Jedi.

 

At first, the training seemed to work, helping Ben regaining control of his battered mind and giving him some reprieve from his fears. But the darkness hadn’t gone—it was only biding its time. As Ben learned more, his natural curiosity drove him to seek answers that his master wouldn’t give him. Along with several other students, Ben studied the Sith, the Empire, and its creation, the infamous Darth Vader. What started out as a rebellious teenager’s quest for knowledge turned into something darker. Before he could realize, Ben’s nightmares were back, accompanied by the intrusive, unnatural voice. Ben tried to explain the voice to Luke, but he did not or would not understand. Ben, finally realizing that this voice was not his own but the voice of a creature of darkness, struggled against its compulsions until that fateful night, the night she had been told about—where in a moment of weakness, Luke drew his lightsaber on Ben and Ben gave in to the dark side.

 

Rey managed to somehow pull herself out of his memories, withdrawing with a gasp. Ben appeared to be more shocked than she. Apologies tumbled out of her lips. “Ben, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I don’t know—”

 

He cut her off. “I know it wasn’t your fault.” She could tell that he had just relived all those memories with her, and the pain was almost unbearable. She could feel it, echoing through his memories. It was not unlike her own pain.

 

There was a wetness on her cheeks, and she realized she was crying. Her breath hitched in her chest, and she choked down a sob. “Ben… I’m so sorry. I didn’t—” Then it was like something inside her snapped, and the tears came in earnest. They ripped at her throat and wracked her entire body. She wasn’t sure when it happened, but when the tears began to slow, she found herself in his arms, her face against his shoulder and his hand in her hair. She should be uncomfortable, but she felt at peace.

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again. “I should be comforting you. But your pain… I _felt_ it. I never imagined…” she trailed off.

 

“It’s okay.” She looked at him to see the barest of smiles on his lips. “The pain is nothing when I’m with you.”

 

Their faces were so close together. She looked at his mouth, and suddenly she saw something out of the corner of her eye; Rey scrambled back just in time as General Hux fired a blaster aimed at her heart.

 

Just as the laser pulse hit her chest, it vanished from view, though Rey felt a ghostly sensation of pain lasting several more moments. Rey turned to Ben in horror, for surely if Hux intended to kill her then he intended the same for Ben. But both men had vanished.

 

_No_ was her first thought, _No, no this can’t be happening._ She had to do something. She closed her eyes and attempted to find him with the Force. She’d never done this before, she had no idea if it’d work. After several moments of concentration, she had found nothing. Either she wasn’t strong enough to find him, or…

 

“NO!” she finally screamed, pounding her fists on the ground in desperation. Then she heard footsteps outside her tent.

 

Finn poked his head through the tent flap. “Rey—” he paused upon seeing her anguished expression. Then he was on the ground beside her, his hands on her shoulders.  “What’s wrong?”

 

“He, he’s… Ben’s in trouble,” she paused and seeing him puzzled, explained “Kylo Ren’s in trouble. I—don’t be mad at me, okay—I’ve been talking to him. Through the Force. And just now, on his side of the connection, someone saw me with him. General Hux saw me. And he tried to shoot me. And then they both vanished.”

 

“Wait, he tried to shoot you? Are you okay? Did he miss?”

 

“I’m fine,” she waved him off “but he’s not—I have to go to him, I have to do _something_ —”

 

“Rey, Rey, you don’t know where he is, do you? You can’t help him Rey. He’s going to be fine, Rey, so just calm—” she was breathing faster than she should be, and he put his hand on her cheek and turned her to his face “just calm down. It’s not going to do anyone any good if you have a panic attack. It’s going to be okay. Just breathe, okay. Just focus on breathing, slowly. Good.”

 

The tears on her face were beginning to dry as she regained control of her racing heart. Finn sat back on his heels, satisfied that she isn’t going to hyperventilate. “So…,” he said after a moment of silence, “do you want to explain this to me now? I mean, you don’t have to now, if you don’t want to…” he added hurriedly, then trails off.

 

She nodded, taking one more deep breath before she began. “It started on Ahch-To.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter starts out in Finn's POV, and then goes back to Rey's. I delve a little bit into what Finn's been doing for the Resistance, I'm trying to work on building up this world and the plot more. But of course, Ben and Rey are my main focus. If you like this fic, leave me a comment. It means a lot!

Finn listened in bewilderment as Rey explained her strange Force bond with Kylo Ren—whom Rey clearly doesn’t regard as her enemy anymore. She related what she learned about him from Luke, and how she saw what could have been his future when they touched. And she told him how when it came down to it, Ren killed Snoke to save her life. Yet he still didn’t forsake the First Order, and so they remained on opposite sides of the conflict.

When she finished, she looked at him helplessly. “I don’t know what to do now. But I can’t just leave him if he’s in trouble… not when he saved me…”

“Rey, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think there’s anything you _can_ do. You can’t connect this… bond yourself, right?” Rey shook her head miserably. “I’m sorry Rey.”

He gave her a hug and, after making sure she was ok, left her to get dressed. He waited to accompany her to the mess hall for breakfast, and when Poe and Rose noticed she wouldn’t talk, he gave them the best explanation he could—Rey was having Force visions that she didn’t want to talk about. Just as they were about to finish their breakfast and separate for their various duties, he caught Rey locking eyes with General Organa. They stared at each other for an uncomfortable amount of time, making it obvious that they were having some sort of conversation, perhaps aided by the Force.

Finally they broke it off, and though Finn was curious, he didn’t ask. He patted Rey’s shoulder and said he’d meet up with her before dinner. She murmured a passive confirmation, not bothering to resurface from her thoughts, written plain on her worried brow.

Finn headed towards the hangar, one of the few permanent structures of this particular base, to go greet a new batch of recruited troops arriving after a long night. Most of them were former stormtroopers who had been captured—or liberated, depending on who you asked—from the First Order. Initially, Finn had been skeptical of the Resistance’s new tactic of targeting individual stormtrooper squadrons to recruit possible defectors but changed his mind after hearing firsthand how the account of his own rebellion and escape had spread covertly through the ranks of the First Order, inspiring more and more insurgence. Nowadays, he was spearheading the liberation movement and personally debriefing and training the former stormtroopers, grateful to be of use after several weeks of being idle while his friends worked.

Normally he was pretty enthusiastic about introducing the new troops to the Resistance, but today his heart wasn’t in it, as his thoughts were with Rey. She had been so concerned about Kylo Ren, the man she saw when everyone else saw a monster. Maybe there was something more to him that Finn couldn’t see. Yet he could not picture the man with anything but rage and dark determination on his harsh features.

He found Rey later in a secluded field behind the hangar, away from prying eyes, practicing her sparring on a couple of retired protocol droids who’d had their complex circuitry salvaged and were essentially just slow-moving metal shells. They were a pathetic sight to see now; both droids had several scorch-marked gashes in their torsos and heads, and one of them was missing an arm. Though he knew that _she_ knew he was there, she continued a merciless attack on one droid until, with an impressive sweeping stroke of her green lightsaber, she slashed right through the droid’s legs. Then she finally disengaged her lightsaber and plunked down next to Finn, chugging from her water canteen.

“Skies, Rey, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you have a vendetta against protocol droids.” She chuckled a little, and Finn was glad to see her laugh. “So have you… heard anything? From him?”

Rey shook her head. “It’s actually quite maddening, that I can’t control this thing at all. I wish… I wish I knew how it worked.”

They spent a few minutes in comfortable silence, listening to the strange, whimsical bird calls in the forest nearby and basked in each other’s company. Then Rey moved to get up, holstering her lightsaber and heaving a sigh. “We’d better get back.”

“Are you just going to leave the carnage of your victims here then? As a warning to other hapless protocol droids that—”

Rey shushed him, suddenly listening for something intently. For a moment, her hand hovered over the lightsaber on her belt before she pivoted on the spot and fixates on a point a few feet behind them in the meadow. “Ben,” she breathed.

She ran at the empty spot and then he materialized as she threw her arms around him. Though Rey had explained the phenomenon to Finn earlier, it was no less jarring to see the tall, cloaked figure appear out of nowhere. Finn watched his face with scrutiny. At first Ren was startled to see the girl in his arms—a look Finn had previously never imagined on his face—and then he sighed in relief and clutched Rey to his chest. The emotion behind his movements made them fierce, but gentle. Finn blinked, shocked, and then decided that, against all his better judgement, he could trust him with her, at least for a few minutes. Seeing that Ren hadn’t yet taken notice of him, Finn slipped away.

\--

Rey was just about to head back to the hangar with Finn when she thought she heard something behind her. She turned around and the rest of the world fell away as they saw each other. Then she was running, crossing the distance between them in a moment and embracing him, hardly daring to breathe until she knew for sure that he was real. She heard him gasp very slightly before closing his arms around her.

“Ben, are you alright? What happened after he shot me?” she asked breathlessly.

“Are you alright? Did he hurt you?” He held her at arm’s length, inspecting her for wounds, as she subconsciously did the same to him.

“No, the shot never actually hit me. But what about you? I thought for sure he was going to…” she trailed off.

“Kill me?” He scoffed lightly. “Hux isn’t strong enough to kill me. At least, not on his own.”

She looked up and searched his amber eyes to see if he was lying, though Ben had never lied to her before. His eyes seemed to be telling the truth, but they also struggled to contain an emotion she couldn’t name.

“What about if he had—had others that backed him up? Other First Order officers?”

“You mean a mutiny.”

She nodded and swallowed a strange lump in her throat. “Could it come to that?”

He looked away as his gaze turned cloudy. “Maybe.”

Rey gave him another moment to respond, and when he didn’t, she said the impulsive thought that came to the tip of her tongue. “I could come get you.” He looked at her, his brow furrowed. She continued, “I could leave right now, I’ll take the Falcon. Just tell me your coordinates.”

He shook his head. “No, Rey, that’s too dangerous. You’d never make it to me undetected.” She began to protest, but he cut her off. “And besides, I have to stay here.”

She looked back into his face in disbelief, hoping to see a reason there that would negate the sinking feeling in her gut. Had she heard him correctly? Was he really choosing the First Order over her _again?_

“ _Why_? Why do you insist on doing it alone? Is the power really what you want?” Her hurt was plain on her face, and even more raw through their bond.

“No, no, that’s not—” he began to backpedal, searching for the right words. “You don’t understand—”

“Then explain it to me, Ben!”

“It’s because I’m just now realizing that I have believed the wrong thing all my life!”

He clutched her shoulders and faced her straight on. “It’s because, up until you came into my life, I had no idea the extent that I was being used and abused. It’s because I just realized that the First Order’s idea of ‘order’ is not worth the galaxy’s freedom. It’s because I know now that the Resistance must succeed. And for the Resistance to succeed, I have to stay at the head of the First Order. So I ensure its downfall.”

Rey was speechless. She opened her mouth only to close it again, because her words would just be noise. His face was pained, but resolved. She knew that saying it made it certain, he couldn’t take it back now. A tear trickled down his face. Rey reached up and wiped it away, her hand lingering to touch the scar she had given him. Finally she found the right words.

“You still don’t have to do it alone.” And with those words, they fell into each other’s arms. She felt him shaking, and realized he was crying. She held him as the tears fell on her shoulder. They let their heartbeats slow together and their minds quiet together.

“Please,” she heard him whisper into her hair “please stay.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Rey promised. She felt the weight of her world that she carried on her shoulders ease a little, as did the weight on his.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while! I'm still trying to figure out exactly where I want this story to go... This chapter is written from Kylo/Ben's POV.

She was holding him, and if he could live forever in that moment, Ben Solo would.

Her tiny frame was kneeling next to his in the grass, still clutching him fiercely. A cool breeze ruffled her hair, and he could smell rain in the air and hear distant sounds of the Resistance’s camp. It was almost as if he’d been transported into her world—everything seemed so tangible, especially her body against his, so warm, and real, and bright. He was struck by a sudden desire to kiss her, to just take her face in his hands and kiss her lips and her nose and her forehead and her hair. _No_ he chastened himself _it’s enough that she’s holding you_. Besides, it’d be a crime for a creature so full of light to stoop to the level of his darkness.

As if sensing his thoughts, (and for a fleeting moment he feared she _could_ ) she pulled back an inch or two to look at his face. Her brow puckered and he realized she was looking at the scar she gave him from the fight in the forest. She tenderly reached up to feel it, her touch like a salve, and he released a shuddering breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. _Kriff_ he cursed himself. _Since when have I felt so much for her?_

He thought back to the forest on Starkiller base, how he had felt her presence and then she called the lightsaber to her. _It is you_ he had murmured, because he suddenly realized where he had seen her before. A female figure, clothed in light and wielding Luke Skywalker’s blue saber, had begun to appear to him in his dreams several months before he had found Rey. Snoke had seen her in his mind, yet he had dismissed her as a phantom from Ben’s past. But the dreams persisted, and then Snoke had speculated that perhaps she was—or would be—a warrior of the Light Side. They both knew Luke was still alive, and was the only person capable of training a new Jedi, so they focused their efforts on finding him, not the woman, yet Rey had still shown up, _with his uncle’s lightsaber_ , no less.

Then the Force had connected them, or at least it seemed, until Snoke claimed responsibility for it minutes before his death. Yet, the bond had activated again on Crait, when he watched her shut him out. But just before she did, he had enough sense to reach out with his mind and latch on to her Force signature, imprinting it into his mind. This had given him enough capacity to find her in the Force and initiate the connection. Except she rejected it, blocked him out of her mind every time. Oddly enough, sometimes the Force still tried to connect them on its own, but she blocked that out as well.

Until a miracle happened and he got through to her. And she revealed that she hadn’t rejected him, that she still wanted him by her side. That hope was enough for him. Enough to let down his guard for her, yet again. Enough to humble himself and apologize. And then, despite the universe owing him nothing, another miracle happened, and she saw inside him when they touched. She saw his wounds, his fear, all his memories. He could keep nothing from her. The Force pulled it from him like a thread from a spool. And though he feared her reaction, it felt so right to let go of it. When they emerged, she looked at him and saw him completely. She let her guard down too, and let him hold her. How she accepted him, he didn’t know, but he was grateful nonetheless.

That is, until her terror flooded his senses and he saw a laser blast go straight through her heart. Then she vanished right before his eyes, and he couldn’t breathe. He was up in a moment, snarling with rage, lightsaber drawn and ready to destroy whoever had attacked her. General Hux stood in the doorway and was aiming his blaster at Ren’s head. Ren would have struck him down then and there, were it not for a pair of stormtroopers that were passing by who snapped to attention just behind Hux. With a twitch of his outstretched hand, he flung the blaster to the floor and yanked Hux inside the empty training room. “As you were,” he growled at the stormtroopers before sealing and locking the door from the inside.

Ren’s anger had always been a fearsome thing, indiscriminate in what it consumed while on its scorching path of fury. But this anger was different, though no less frightening. It surged up from a place deep inside his chest, the place he delegated to all his emotions that weren’t anger. He was choking on it as it rose inside him, the desperation overwhelming in its intensity. He pinned Hux up against a wall, but he couldn’t see him clearly because Rey’s face swam in front of his vision, her hazel eyes shifting from afraid to shocked to lifeless. The ringing in his ears hadn’t fully faded away when he was able to distinguish another sound—a dry, raspy heaving sound. Though Ren was a hair’s breadth from snapping his neck, General Hux was _laughing_.

“I should have known,” Hux wheezed. “Yet it’s so pathetic, even for you.”

“I’d choose your words carefully,” Ren said through clenched teeth. “They may be your last.”

“You killed Snoke, not her. You killed him _for_ her.” Ren squeezed Hux’s throat tighter. “But you can’t kill me. You _need_ me.” Hux began to laugh again, hysteria rising in his tone until it was roughly cut off by Ren flinging him into a rack of armor.

Hux was right—Ren did need him alive, for now at least. But Rey…

He closed his eyes, forcing himself into a meditative state as quickly as he could, and reached across the vast expanse of the Force until he found her signature again—alive and well, though distressed and afraid. It was with the accompanying flood of relief that Ben realized that nothing he had would be worth anything if he lost her. Not his power, not his station, none of it. It shook him to his core.

He opened his eyes to see Hux regaining his composure, though his eyes still mocked him. “I came to inform you that we have visitors,” he said coolly.


End file.
